Working surfaces commonly experience cracking due to any number of causes, such as wear, damage, weather conditions, or material composition of the work surface. To avoid further cracking and/or as a temporary fix in lieu of complete replacement, the cracks are repaired. Repairing the cracks often includes filling the cracks in the working surface with a filling material.
Similarly, working surfaces made of concrete material, for example, are often formed with control joints, also known as a construction joints or transition joints. These joints are provided to accommodate the expansion and contraction of the concrete material. It is often desirable to fill the control joints with a filling material that accommodates the expansion and contraction of the concrete material, while providing a uniformly flush working surface.
In concrete surface applications of either repairing a crack or filling a control joint, the filling material is typically a flowable or extrudable material that fills and hardens within the crack volume. When applying the filling material, a volume of filling material greater than the crack volume is often deposited within the crack to ensure that the entire crack is filled. Other types of filling materials are designed to expand beyond the volume defined by the crack to ensure that the entire crack is filled. In either case, workers are required to remove the excess filling material so that the top surface of the filling material is flush with the concrete working surface. Typically, this procedure requires the worker to use a hand scraper to scrape the excess filling material. Scraping excess hardened material by hand can be very laborious, as the worker is required to be on his hands and knees while manually scraping the hardened filling material. This type of work is tiring and sometimes causes back, knee, or other injury to the worker.
In general, improvement has been sought with respect to such devices and methods of crack repair.